¹¹ Therefore, remember that at one time you were Gentiles (heathens) in the flesh, called Uncircumcision by those who called themselves Circumcision, [itself a ^[a]mere mark] in the flesh made by human hands.

¹² [Remember] that you were at that time separated (living apart) from Christ [excluded from all part in Him], utterly estranged and outlawed from the rights of Israel as a nation, and strangers with no share in the sacred compacts of the [Messianic] promise [with no knowledge of or right in God’s agreements, His covenants]. And you had no hope (no promise); you were in the world without God.

¹³ But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were [so] far away, through (by, in) the blood of Christ have been brought near.

¹⁴ For He is [Himself] our peace (our bond of unity and harmony). He has made us both [Jew and Gentile] one [body], and has broken down (destroyed, abolished) the hostile dividing wall between us,

¹⁵ By abolishing in His [own crucified] flesh the enmity [caused by] the Law with its decrees and ordinances [which He annulled]; that He from the two might create in Himself one new man [one new quality of humanity out of the two], so making peace.

¹⁶ And [He designed] to reconcile to God both [Jew and Gentile, united] in a single body by means of His cross, thereby killing the mutual enmity and bringing the feud to an end.

¹⁷ And He came and preached the glad tidings of peace to you who were afar off and [peace] to those who were near.^(A)

¹⁸ For it is through Him that we both [whether far off or near] now have an introduction (access) by one [Holy] Spirit to the Father [so that we are able to approach Him].

¹⁹ Therefore you are no longer outsiders (exiles, migrants, and aliens, excluded from the rights of citizens), but you now share citizenship with the saints (God’s own people, consecrated and set apart for Himself); and you belong to God’s [own] household.

²⁰ You are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus Himself the chief Cornerstone.

²¹ In Him the whole structure is joined (bound, welded) together harmoniously, and it continues to rise (grow, increase) into a holy temple in the Lord [a sanctuary dedicated, consecrated, and sacred to the presence of the Lord].

²² In Him [and in fellowship with one another] you yourselves also are being built up [into this structure] with the rest, to form a fixed abode (dwelling place) of God in (by, through) the Spirit.

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15 The mournful, inspired prediction (a burden to be lifted up) concerning Moab: Because in a night Ar of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence! Because in a night Kir of Moab is laid waste and brought to silence!

² They are gone up to Bayith and to Dibon, to the high places to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba; on all their heads is baldness, and every beard is cut off [as a sign of deep sorrow and humiliation].^(A)

³ In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth; on the tops of their houses and in their broad places everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

⁴ And Heshbon and Elealeh [cities in possession of Moab] cry out; their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed soldiers of Moab cry out; [Moab’s] life is grievous and trembles within him.

⁵ My heart cries out for Moab; his nobles and other fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah [like a heifer three years old]. For with weeping they go up the ascent of Luhith; for on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction.^(B)

⁶ For the waters of Nimrim are desolations, for the grass is withered away and the new growth fails; there is no green thing.

⁷ Therefore the abundance [of possessions] they have acquired and stored away they [now] carry over the willow brook and to the valley of the Arabians.

⁸ For the cry [of distress] has gone round the borders of Moab; the wailing has reached to Eglaim, and the prolonged and mournful cry to Beer-elim.

⁹ For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; yet I [the Lord] will bring even more on Dimon—a lion upon those of Moab who escape and upon the remnant of the land.

16 You [Moabites, now fugitives in Edom, which is ruled by the king of Judah] send ^[a]lambs to the ruler of the land, from Sela or Petra through the desert and wilderness to the mountain of the Daughter of Zion [Jerusalem].^(C)

² For like wandering birds, like a brood cast out and a scattered nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the [river] Arnon.

³ [Say to the ruler] Give counsel, execute justice [for Moab, O king of Judah]; make your shade [over us] like night in the midst of noonday; hide the outcasts, betray not the fugitive to his pursuer.

⁴ Let our outcasts of Moab dwell among you; be a sheltered hiding place to them from the destroyer. When the extortion and the extortioner have been brought to nought, and destruction has ceased, and the oppressors and they who trample men are consumed and have vanished out of the land,

⁵ Then in mercy and loving-kindness shall a throne be established, and ^[b] One shall sit upon it in truth and faithfulness in the tent of David, judging and seeking justice and being swift to do righteousness.^(D)

⁶ We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud—even of his arrogance, his conceit, his wrath, his untruthful boasting.

⁷ Moab therefore shall wail for Moab; everyone shall wail. For the ruins, flagons of wine, and the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth you shall sigh and mourn, utterly stricken and discouraged.

⁸ For the fields of Heshbon languish and wither, and the vines of Sibmah; the lords of the nations have broken down [Moab’s] choice vine branches, which reached even to Jazer, wandering into the wilderness; its shoots stretched out abroad, they passed over [the shores of] the [Dead] Sea.

⁹ Therefore I [Isaiah] will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vines of Sibmah. I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; for upon your summer fruits and your harvest the shout [of alarm and the cry of the enemy] has fallen.

¹⁰ And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there is no singing, nor is there joyful sound; the treaders tread out no wine in the presses, for the shout of joy has been made to cease.

¹¹ Wherefore my heart sounds like a harp [in mournful compassion] for Moab, and my inner being [goes out] for Kir-hareseth [for those brick-walled citadels of his].

¹² It shall be that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself [worshiping] on the high place [of idolatry], he will come to his sanctuary [of Chemosh, god of Moab], but he will not prevail. [Then will he be ashamed of his god.]^(E)

¹³ This is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning Moab since that time [when Moab’s pride and resistance to God were first known].

¹⁴ But now the Lord has spoken, saying, Within ^[c]three years, as the years of a hireling [who will not serve longer than the allotted time], the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt, in spite of all his mighty multitudes of people; and the remnant that survives will be very small, feeble, and of no account.

17 The mournful, inspired prediction (a burden to be lifted up) concerning Damascus [capital of Syria, and Israel’s bulwark against Assyria]. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins.

² The cities of Aroer [east of the Jordan] are forsaken; they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

³ His bulwark [Syria] and the fortress shall disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Syria will be like the [departed] glory of the children of Israel [her ally], says the Lord of hosts.

⁴ And in that day the former glory of Jacob [Israel—his might, his population, his prosperity] shall be enfeebled, and the fat of his flesh shall become lean.

⁵ And it shall be as when the reaper gathers the standing grain and his arm harvests the ears; yes, it shall be as when one gathers the ears of grain in the fertile Valley of Rephaim.

⁶ Yet gleanings [of grapes] shall be left in it [the land of Israel], as after the beating of an olive tree [with a stick], two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outermost branches of the fruitful tree, says the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day will men look to their Maker, and their eyes shall regard the Holy One of Israel.

⁸ And they will not look to the [idolatrous] altars, the work of their hands, neither will they have respect for what their fingers have made—either the Asherim [symbols of the goddess Asherah] or the sun-images.

⁹ In that day will their [Syria’s and Israel’s] strong cities be like the forsaken places in the wood and on the mountaintop, as they [the ^[d]Amorites and the Hivites] forsook their [cities] because of the children of Israel; and there will be desolation.

¹⁰ Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation [O Judah] and have not been mindful of the Rock of your strength, your Stronghold—therefore, you have planted pleasant nursery grounds and plantings [to Adonis, pots of quickly withered flowers used to set by their doors or in the courts of temples], and have set [the grounds] with vine slips of a strange [God],

¹¹ And in the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom, yet [promising as it is] the harvest shall be a heap of ruins and flee away in the day of expected possession and of desperate sorrow and sickening, incurable pain.

¹² Hark, the uproar of a multitude of peoples! They roar and thunder like the noise of the seas! Ah, the roar of nations! They roar like the roaring of rushing and mighty waters!

¹³ The nations will rush and roar like the rushing and roaring of many waters—but [God] will rebuke them, and they will flee far off and will be chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, and like rolling thistledown or whirling dust of the stubble before the storm.

¹⁴ At evening time, behold, terror! And ^[e]before the morning, they [the terrorizing Assyrians] are not. This is the portion of those who strip us [the Jews] of what belongs to us, and the lot of those who rob us. [Fulfilled in Isa. 37:36.]

18 Woe to the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush or Ethiopia,

² That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide!

³ All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains—look! When a trumpet is blown—hear!

⁴ For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear and glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.

⁵ For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will remove and cut away.

⁶ They [the dead bodies of the slain warriors] shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.

⁷ At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and polished, from a people terrible from their beginning and feared and dreaded near and far, a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers or great channels divide—to the place [of worship] of the ^[f]Name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion [in Jerusalem].^(F)